Re: Brainstorming: Key Issues -- surrogates and indirection

Hi Karen,

Good idea! I've tried to massage that in an addition to "surrogate" and a reference from "heading". I hope it's alright.

Antoine


> Antoine, do you want to add to the definition to capture that? Another place to talk about that might be in an entry for "Heading" or "Name authority." That's what VIAF represents, although because of its clusters of names, VIAF adds another layer of surrogate.
>
> kc
>
> Quoting Antoine Isaac <aisaac@few.vu.nl>:
>
>> OK, so let's dive into the issue :-)
>>
>> The problem I have with the definition as such is that it may be quite aligned with the SW intuition of having a URI for a book as a surrogate for the real thing [1].
>> E.g., http://libris.kb.se/resource/bib/9800324 stands for the real book: the dc:creator value refers to the "real" author. I don't feel that there is a huge difference here between the library approach and the SW one.
>>
>> Now, the problem Jeff and I want to point out is that the situation is slightly different with http://viaf.org/viaf/24604287 .
>> This URI is not the URI of a real person, it is a URI for a NameAuthorityCluster which eventually leads to something that stands for a person (http://viaf.org/viaf/24604287/#foaf:Person). The dc:creator of that may be "http://www.oclc.org#theorganization (which would stand for a *real* organization!). See the old SKOS documentation for a short discussion on this [2].
>>
>> This level of indirection for persons-as-topics is not captured in the definition, which I think rather focuses on the part that is compatible with the LD "traditional vision". Naturally, that's not an issue per se--it's good if we can show that approaches are mostly aligned! The problem is that both you and Jeff used "surrogate", but I'm not sure you had the same issue in mind. If I'm proven wrong, of course I'll definitively shut up on this :-)
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Antoine
>>
>> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/cooluris/#semweb
>> [2]http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-swbp-skos-core-guide-20051102/#secmodellingrdf
>>
>>> Quoting "Young,Jeff (OR)" <jyoung@oclc.org>:
>>>
>>>> It might help if "surrogate" was included on the library terminology page: http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/wiki/Library_terminology_informally_explained.
>>>
>>> Done, mostly cribbed from Lois Mai Chan's definitive tome on Cataloging and Classification:
>>>
>>> A library catalog is a surrogate for the actual collection. It is made up of brief representations of items in the library collection. A library catalog entry is a surrogate for the item, with key information that describes the item such as author, title, publication information and physical characteristics. The catalog has also places items in a topical representation of knowledge using subject headings and classification numbers.
>>>
>>> kc
>>>
>>>>
>>>> I think it's safe to say that a "surrogate" is never "the real thing". The term "surrogate" doesn't exist in any RDF vocabulary, but skos:Concept does exist and can serve the same purpose. As long as the labels (aka headings) are intuitive, neither of these models of abstraction require everyone to agree on the modeling of reality. Nevertheless, foaf:focus provides us with an RDF property to attempt the feat:
>>>>
>>>> ex:1 a skos:Concept ;
>>>> skos:inScheme ex:myScheme ;
>>>> skos:prefLabel "Aristotle"@en ;
>>>> skos:prefLabel "Ἀριστοτέλης"@grk ;
>>>> foaf:focus ex:2 .
>>>>
>>>> ex:2 a foaf:FeatherlessBiped ;
>>>> foaf:name "Aristotle"@en ;
>>>> foaf:name "Ἀριστοτέλης"@grk .
>>>>
>>>> Jeff
>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: public-xg-lld-request@w3.org [mailto:public-xg-lld-
>>>>> request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Karen Coyle
>>>>> Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2011 5:30 PM
>>>>> To: Antoine Isaac
>>>>> Cc: public-xg-lld@w3.org
>>>>> Subject: Re: Brainstorming: Key Issues
>>>>>
>>>>> Quoting Antoine Isaac <aisaac@few.vu.nl>:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> + Need to carefully articulate library value vocabularies (concepts,
>>>>>> terms) with real world entities they stand for. Library entities are
>>>>>> "proxies" for real things, which linked data has as core focus.
>>>>>> Perhaps this needs some education of the LD community, ie, convince
>>>>>> them that there is any value in having such proxies. And identifying
>>>>>> appropriate mechanisms (ie. efficient in terms of data creation and
>>>>>> consumption) to represent this (a-la skos:Concept + foaf:focus)
>>>>>
>>>>> I'll add this in, but I'm not sure you'll get consensus on this one.
>>>>> Or at least, there will be differences in what people assume is the
>>>>> "real thing" being represented. E.g. library catalog entry is seen by
>>>>> some as a surrogate for the book; the subject headings are thus part
>>>>> of the surrogate for the book, not representatives of real world
>>>>> objects -- thus topic "Eiffel Tower" in catalog entry represents the
>>>>> topic of book, not the tower itself.
>>>>>
>>>>> We could spend the rest of our time on this question, so perhaps it
>>>>> should be introduced in the document as a question that needs to be
>>>>> answered, rather than an answer that needs to be accepted.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'll add in your other comments as well.
>>>>>
>>>>> kc
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Immaturity of Semantic Web at this Time
>>>>>>> - "There is a general sparseness of linkage in the LOD cloud."
>>>>>>> - Over-use or misuse of properties like OWL sameAs
>>>>>>> - Lack of generalized tools for creation and use of LD
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Readiness of Library Community (Education)
>>>>>>> - "Publishing Linked Data requires expertise which is often not
>>>>>>> available at institutions..."
>>>>>>> - Changing mental model from "records" to "graphs"
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> + Communication/cooperation with wider cultural sector. Problems are
>>>>>> quite similar across LAM actors.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Applications and Management
>>>>>>> - (what Ross said)
>>>>>>> - Managing a heterogeneous metadata environment (libraries now are
>>>>>>> more homogeneous)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> + bouncing back on Ross' "Where to start?", a "Where to stop"
>>>>>> complement: libraries should perhaps learn to rely on data produced
>>>>>> by others and not try to produce every required data by themselves
>>>>>> (gazetteers come to mind).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> + versioning and updates. When/how to disseminate change
>>>>>> notifications, how data consumers should integrate them (problem of
>>>>>> deprecation/removal of triples).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> But well, this part starts looking like a very general LD issue
>>>>>> list, not specific to libraries or even the wider cultural sector...
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Antoine
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Karen Coyle
>>>>> kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
>>>>> ph: 1-510-540-7596
>>>>> m: 1-510-435-8234
>>>>> skype: kcoylenet
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>

Received on Thursday, 24 February 2011 09:57:38 UTC